Less than a week after the fatal attack on a gas station cashier in Idar-Oberstein, the police reacted consistently to the death threat of a person who refused to wear a mask.

As the police in Trier announced on Thursday, a man in Schweich - around 50 kilometers west of Idar-Oberstein - threatened an employee of a supermarket on Wednesday.

After the cashier pointed out to the man how to wear the mouth and nose mask correctly, he said he could shoot her and left the market.

The police identified a 56-year-old from Trier as a suspect.

The city's district court issued a search warrant for the accused's home.

"On the one hand, threats are being investigated, and there is also an announcement of criminal offenses in the room," said a police spokesman.

"We are resolutely taking action against such threats and announcements of acts of imitation of the terrible homicide in Idar-Oberstein," emphasized the Trier police chief Friedel Durben.

"Such crimes unsettle the population and are not to be tolerated." The police presence in Idar-Oberstein remains increased.

Meanwhile, the investigation into the fatal shots at the gas station cashier is progressing. When evaluating the perpetrator's personal data carrier, the investigators would “constantly gain new knowledge”, said Chief Public Prosecutor Kai Fuhrmann on Friday to the German Press Agency (dpa) in Bad Kreuznach. "We are making progress, but it is laborious because there is really a lot of data." And: "We are also making progress on the matter." A final result is not yet possible. "That'll take time," he said.

Last Saturday, a 20-year-old cashier was shot dead by a 49-year-old at a gas station in Idar-Oberstein. The victim had previously informed the perpetrator of the mask requirement. After his arrest, the perpetrator said, according to investigators, that he rejects the corona measures. The man, previously unknown to the police, is in custody on suspicion of murder. In the case of the weapons that the 49-year-old gunman did not legally have, there is “of course evidence” of their origin, said Chief Public Prosecutor Fuhrmann. But they are not yet to be published. "We have to come to a final result first."

Aside from this, the petrol station interest group accused politicians of leaving employees at petrol stations alone with the implementation of corona measures. "With the Corona rules, politicians are shifting police tasks onto companies. The petrol station employee becomes a police officer, ”criticized spokesman Herbert Rabl in an interview with the newspaper Welt. The members of the association also reported threats of fines from public order offices. So there is a lot of pressure to enforce rules. “The employees are concerned and ask themselves: How are we protected? Who will help us? "

Meanwhile, constitutional protection officials are warning of a danger from radicalized so-called “lateral thinkers”.

Due to a lack of success on the street, a small part of the protest movement is "now radicalizing itself in the fight against imagined oppression," said Hamburg's constitution protection chief Torsten Voss to the magazine Der Spiegel.

From investigative circles it became known that the 49-year-old perpetrator from Idar-Oberstein was “well versed” in the theories of the corona deniers.

"He knows the sources and has also stated that he has made himself smart," it said.

It has not yet been proven whether he radicalized himself in social networks.